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Graphic Traffic? (*spoilers*)

I tore through the entirety of [I]Rant[/I] last night and early this morning... And I absolutely loved it. Chuck attacking those big life questions of "Why?" and "How?" at his finger-lickin', vomit-inducin', stitch-bustin' best. But like so many others, my adoration was still anchored with confusion. With my brain sufficiently fried, I finally decided to get some sleep around 6 am, just so I could get up and reread the first chapter and the last 70 or so pages. And, although clearer, I'm still trying to figure a lot of shit out. Putting aside the time travel paradoxes, the government conspiracies, the missing characters, the rabies epidemic, the werewolves... I'd just like to discuss something a bit simpler, to deal with questions about the rules of Party Crashing. Specifically, when I first visualized the car wrecks in Party Crashing, the scenes described on Radio Graphic Traffic, I pictured some real wrecks. No little fender benders, I pictured the kind of car wreck that we saw in [I]Fight Club[/I]. But then I read this:

"Fouls include tagging too hard - figure the impact by the speed of each vehicle. Anything totaling more than twenty miles per hour is a foul. If I'm driving ten, and you're driving eleven, and you swerve to hit me head-on, that's an impact over twenty. I can call the foul on you. Excess impact is only one foul to call."

Now I understand that this is a game, Party Crashers aren't out there to kill each other, but ten and eleven miles per hour? Isn't this "how church should feel"? If it's regarded as such a thrill, a futuristic destruction derby, an almost religious experience, I'd just think "the pulse" would involve more than two cars idling into each other. The wrecks to slip into liminal time are obviously more violent, but linking what happens during the games to the rules, cars take off in clouds of rubber and smoke, turn down sidestreets, chase each other... And then slow down to match twenty miles per hour total? The rules are left vague, but how could you ever really tag somebody if they can drive away at whatever speed over twenty they'd like? This seems to completely contradict when Tina and Wax are tagging the back of Echo's car during Rant's first ride. Anybody pick up on something I missed? Or is the game really just not supposed to be that dangerous?

1. there are rules to the game, and fouls
2. people break the rules all the time, with and without consequence
3. there are accidents happening in/outside the game that involve death
4. most of the tagging/damage is show/game, and low key

Well, was it ever stated that everyone involved understands the real goal of the game? What about the goth girls with the bats and the friend that disappears? I need to re-read that part because I might be talking out of my arse here, but weren't they illustrated as sort of typical teens that are just joiners of anything just to be rebellious and cool, that got rabies by accident and not having anything to do with Rant, and they sort of get involved by coincidence?

Rather than the rules, it was about limnal time. About that moment when you crash that exists outside of time. Twenty-miles perhour is still mighty fast, especially when you're wearing 500 pounds of steel.

wasn't it explained later that all the graphic traffic reports were actually party crashers?

Yeah, I remember something like that. Considering that Tina Something was a Party Crasher, too. Graphic Traffic was put in place by the government because, as a result of Party Crashing, people were rubbernecking too much because the crashers would put on a show. They thought if they told people over the radio what was happening (in graphic detail) that they wouldn't need to clog up traffic rubber necking. Is that right?

I didn't really think about it, but you're right when you say that 20 mph isn't really that fast. I guess I just thought that, for the most part, there were the really horrible crashes and then there were just the people out to have fun with it... fender benders. I hope I got that right.

as for the 20 mph being a little slow. I think that's just a sort of rule of thumb for them
they obviously had more violent crashes just no one would report them as a foul because it was part of the fun. If they felt there was some ill-intent on crashing into you though, then they would call the foul

I may be dead wrong here, since I can't seem to find the page on the book where this is discussed I have trouble proving my case or realizing how wrong I am before saying it, but they way I took it was too mean that the relative speed of the two cars had to be less than 20. i.e. The scenario given only totals over 20 because the collision was head-on meaning that relative to each other the other car was traveling 21 mph. Thus my interpretation(and if someone could direct me to the right page that would be great :)) would allow for a tag from rear if one car was going 60 and the other 80 to catch, thus the impact speed would only be 20 mph.

I may be dead wrong here, since I can't seem to find the page on the book where this is discussed I have trouble proving my case or realizing how wrong I am before saying it, but they way I took it was too mean that the relative speed of the two cars had to be less than 20. i.e. The scenario given only totals over 20 because the collision was head-on meaning that relative to each other the other car was traveling 21 mph. Thus my interpretation(and if someone could direct me to the right page that would be great :)) would allow for a tag from rear if one car was going 60 and the other 80 to catch, thus the impact speed would only be 20 mph.

I'm not gonna lie, I don't know. I just remember reading that it had to be a combined speed of 20 mph. I'm tired though.

I may be dead wrong here, since I can't seem to find the page on the book where this is discussed I have trouble proving my case or realizing how wrong I am before saying it, but they way I took it was too mean that the relative speed of the two cars had to be less than 20. i.e. The scenario given only totals over 20 because the collision was head-on meaning that relative to each other the other car was traveling 21 mph. Thus my interpretation(and if someone could direct me to the right page that would be great :)) would allow for a tag from rear if one car was going 60 and the other 80 to catch, thus the impact speed would only be 20 mph.

That's what I thought too at first, and really wanted to believe, but the wording really doesn't suggest anything about a relative speed: "Anything totaling more than twenty miles per hour is a foul. If I'm driving ten, and you're driving eleven, and you swerve to hit me head-on, that's an impact over twenty." The way it's worded really lends itself to the thought that either I'm going twenty and you're stopped and I can hit you, or we're both moving at a slow speed and collide. Which again I have to say, doesn't sound like a transcendent experience... I mean, hitting a parked car at twenty would definitely do some damage, but if you're both moving, as most cars were in the games, it kind of takes the whole thrill aspect away. Makes it just for giggles. I found something else that would unfortunately suggest this is correct on page 152 spoken by Shot Dunyan: "Green Taylor Simms feathers the gas pedal, patient. The target car almost touching-close. Almost brushing the line of parked cars. Our two cars moving first-gear slow." But on the previous page it's contradictive, saying "The target dives around the next right turn, down a dark lane of parked cars, and Green throws us past the bus in pursuit. Two student drivers, leaving rubber and smoke." Like I said before, this would imply that two cars take off and just when they're about to hit, they slow down to meet twenty miles per hour. Which seems ridiculous. Maybe it really was a bunch of kids who were just bored, being rebellious, doing something together, but I don't think the subtext of cat-and-mouse excitement fits with that.

You can find the original section on page 135, chapter 17, spoken by Jerrell Moore, but I've read and reread that page and anything else that had to do with excessive impact, and what I quoted is all there is to the actual rule.

I know traffic management and traffic engineers. The truth is in many places, nearly every intersection and freeway exit has a traffic camera around somewhere if you look for it. First responders and municipal tow trucks that show up on the scene probably have cameras as well, maybe even a live uplink over EVDO or CDMA to stream the video back to the traffic management center, you don't even need a dish and expensive satellite uplink anymore to do that. My point being some obliging asshole is inevitably going to cause an accident well in view of a camera somewhere, every day, several times a day, so it would be absurd to go out and cause accidents in order to see what happens as is described in the book. For that matter, it doesn't even have to be an accident, it could be anything even remotely curious or out of place. If a dog was taking a shit on the side of the road, people would slow down to see it. One time, I saw a traffic jam on the PA turnpike caused by a wrinkled old man walking naked along the shoulder.

I hadn't read the background that it was supposed to be alternative history. I'm a little slow on the uptake as far as that goes. Although I read Difference Engine, but it was pretty obvious in that case. And I have watched the Flintstones. Anyway, I wasn't saying it as a criticism of Chuck's writing or anything, just saying how things actually work in case you were interested.

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